Triple Play

It's not new news that converged communications is becoming a highly sought-after solution among businesses and consumers alike. The rise in demand for voice, video and data in one has telecom incumbents adding services to their line-up, prompting an increase in product subscriptions - thus bringing us to the emerging phenomenon of triple play.

Last Fall, Gartner Research issued a report that stated household adoption of triple play access will likely double in 2008. There are multiple benefits when acquiring triple-play, and to the consumer, having all broadband services on one bill is reason enough! And here we are in 2005 triple play is becoming a household term, and were not talking about sports anymore.

NetCentrex, a supplier of fixed-mobile converged services has been on TMCs radar. Greg Galitzine, Editorial Director for Internet Telephony magazine blogged about IPlay3, the consortium comprised of NetCentrex, Envivio, and Highdeal three providers that together offer VoIP, video over IP, and OSS services. NetCentrex is no small player in the industry. In September, NetCentrex exceeded 1 million Class 5 end-to-end VoIP CPE-based lines with customer activations reaching over 3,000 lines per day. Here's a little math - according to NetCentrex, there are already over 4.6 million VoIP subscribers - globally - which means that NetCentrex maintains over 20 percent of the consumer foundation.

In October of 2004, NetCentrex announced a triple-play partnership with HomeNet Communications, who were responsible for one of the first FTTH (fiber to the home) deployments in the United States. Together, HomeNet Communications and NetCentrex instituted the iProvo project to deliver video and communications to the city of Provo in conjunction with the local power company. In a recent article, president of HomeNet Corporation Frank Gillen stated that "NetCentrex is one of the largest VoIP equipment providers in the world! They approached us at a convention looking for someone here in the U.S. who could represent them in a strategic venture. Usually, they won't deal with anything under 30,000 or 40,000 subscribers, but we bought a $500,000 softswitch. They run though us all of their U.S. customers requiring service, and we get number portability around the world."

The iProvo project will run over the course of 8 stages through 2005 and into 2006

And if that weren't enough to convince you of NetCentrex's stand on the triple play mound, flashback to 1992 where in Homestead, Florida, hurricane Andrew was the culprit of a massive devastation - 5,000 homes destroyed, 85,000 business ruined and an Air Force base completely annihilated. Despite the damage, Homestead is now one of the more prominent areas that deploy a fiber-to-the-premises network, thanks to NetCentrexs IPlay3, which now provides the application softswitch and media server pieces within the Homestead network. Over the span of the next three years, the population of Homestead, FL is expected to reach 80,000, - a whopping fifty thousand more consumers to serve than from that of 2002. Homestead utilized a large portion of the relief funds to re-build what is now one of the best infrastructures in South Florida.

Founded in 1998, NetCentrex operates in the United States, France and Spain. In January of 2005, NetCentrex was added to Frost & Sullivans Best Practices Hall of Fame. And now, the team of TMCnet.com welcomes NetCentrex and IPlay3 to its group of channel sponsors as an integral force in the triple play space.

Michelle Pasquerello is the Online Channels Editor for TMCnet.com. She can be reached for comment at [email protected]